Marching Through Georgia

"War has started." That was the word from Vladimir Putin, currently prime
minister and informally the latest Tsar of the new-old Russia, who at the
time was speaking directly from the Genocide Olympics at Beijing, that grand
festival of world peace and brotherhood. The ironies abound.

Ah, yes, just what the world needs: another war. And where has this one
started? In the Caucasus between ever imperial Russia and a much smaller but
ever feisty Georgia, which broke away from the old Soviet Union when it
disunited.

The war is over South Ossetia, a province that in turn broke away from
Georgia - and has been struggling for independence or some form thereof ever
since. (North Ossetia remained part of Russia, South Ossetia did so only
informally.) To many of us, Ossetia is a name about as familiar as Bosnia
was in 1914 - before an Austrian grand duke was assassinated while touring
its capital, Sarajevo. And tension began to mount.

At first that, too, was going to be just a localized conflict, one between
the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia. The trouble was going to be ironed
out by Europe's great powers in their collective wisdom. Each in turn moved
to arbitrate, negotiate, fulminate and generally temporize before, alas,
they mobilized. Result: an almost accidental world war, the first of two
that made the last century man's bloodiest.

Madness, madness.

The moral of the awful story: Temporizing can be dangerous to the world's
health. Fail to resolve a crisis soon, and the world could wind up fighting
at length.

Now it's the world's powers - NATO, Washington, the European Union - that
are moving to arbitrate, negotiate, take sides and generally dawdle while
the bombs burst. Meanwhile, casualties mount, refugees flee, bodies litter
the streets, and the communiques give conflicting versions of who was to
blame.

Georgia begins to realize it has overplayed its hand by moving to regain its
restive province. The Russians see their chance, if not to seize Georgia,
then to overthrow its government. The Russians go marching through Georgia;
the Georgians appeal to Washington for help. All concerned grow more
belligerent. This Is Not Good.

Something needs to be done. Right Now. Like ensuring a cease-fire and
getting the warring powers and representatives of those caught in the middle
to start talking instead of fighting. Then a settlement might be worked out,
as eventually it was in the Balkans when the Serbs, Bosnians, Kosovars, NATO
and the Americans found themselves at war.

Someday the Ossetians could enjoy a kind of independence akin to that
eventually won by Kosovo. But that is way down the theoretical road at this
point. Let's hope it's not also a bloody road.

Lest we forget, the First World War, that calamitous folly, would prove only
Act I of a century of world war, revolutions and bloody upheaval of all
kinds. It began in a month-long combination of farce and tragedy: The
Austrians demanded satisfaction of the Serbs for the assassination of their
royal scion at Sarajevo. The Serbians turned to their Slavic big brother,
Russia, for protection. The Austrians in turn appealed to their German ally,
which gave them a blank check to do as they wished. The French, honoring
their alliance with the Russians, not to mention their long-standing animus
toward all things Teutonic, lined up against Germany. While the German
general staff, acting on a long prepared plan for war against France (the
Schlieffen Plan) struck through undefended Belgium, which meant the British,
committed to Belgian neutrality, felt obliged to enter the war on the French
side.

The golden summer of 1914 ended early, and with it, a golden era. And the
lights went out all over Europe.

Mainly because nobody in power was able to say, STOP! - and make it stick.
The world has been paying for it ever since.

This time, could we please skip the war and go directly to the peace? Little
wars have a way of spreading into great ones. Especially if, like a
wildfire, they're ignored.

Remember how long it took to get serious about stopping the carnage in
Bosnia back in the always temporizing Age of Clinton? Now another war has
begun. Should we ignore it at length, too? After all, who in this country
ever heard of South Ossetia? About as many people who could have told you
where Bosnia was in 1914.

If only there were a real United Nations, but of course there isn't. Which
leaves it to this era's great powers, including the greatest one, to rush in
the diplomats - instead of having to rush in troops. Let us take thought.
And action. Time is lives. And safety. Don't squander it.